The walk back to Sentinel Station was blessedly uneventful, with Edwin carrying Knut easily, his strength making the mercenary seem light as a child. Eryn stayed close to my side as we recounted with Johan what had happened with Benedict's group.
Soon, the killing field stretched before us, logging teams working on expanding its length. A bell rang out - once - signaling our approach. Edwin's face grew darker with each detail of our story, his jaw clenched tight enough to almost crack a tooth.
“He just... left you?” Edwin's voice carried the quiet fury of an avalanche building, and his face resembled a tempest.
“Sprinted away without a backward glance,” I confirmed.
The towering gates to the camp stood wide open, and inside awaited a familiar figure that made my blood run hot. Benedict. His pristine robes still untouched by battle. His eyes darted between Edwin and me, calculation written across his features.
I'd really like to see how you try and get out of this one.
Before anyone could speak, Benedict stormed forward, jabbing a finger at my chest.
“You! How dare you show your face here after what you did?”
What in the monster balls?
“Your insubordination nearly got us all killed!”
“That's not—” I started, but Benedict's voice rose over mine.
“Running off into the forest, refusing to follow orders!”
“KILL HIM! SPLIT his LYING skull!” Roq raged in my mind. “Let me taste his BLOOD!”
A firm hand gripped my shoulder. Alex's voice cut through Roq's bloodthirsty demands.
“Let the adventurer speak, scavenger.”
I turned and glared at the healer, but his friendly smile cooled my anger, for the moment, and his nod conveyed his intention to trust Edwin and him.
I glanced around and saw the soldiers and adventurers gathering, all watching Benedict's face redden as he continued with his childish tirade.
“Ash challenged my authority in front of everyone! Then he manipulated Knut, our tank, into abandoning us, taking him and his little girlfriend into the forest. Marcus is dead because of him!”
“You breach-born lying bastard, I—”
Edwin's raised hand cut me off, my knuckles whitening around Roq's handle. The hammer thrummed with murderous intent, this time mirroring my own perfectly. It took everything I had not to just smack the lying bastard and be done with it.
“We barely survived without our tank,” Benedict's voice echoed with manufactured grief. “The others, we...” He turned to Edwin, gesturing helplessly. “Commander, surely you have something to say about this?”
Edwin's expression remained unreadable as stone.
“Are you finished?”
“No.” Benedict drew himself up, ice crackling around his staff. “Hand him over to me. In the name of the adventuring guild, I demand to carry out the punishment myself.”
I shifted my stance.
“If he tries to lay a single hand on me, we're taking him down.”
“Don't wait! Strike first! Strike NOW! Paint the walls with his entrails and then take a dump on what remains!”
Edwin's hand snapped out like a viper, ripping the staff from Benedict's grasp and handing it to Alex. The ice magic dissipated instantly, leaving only wisps of cold air and a mask of confusion on the magician's face.
“What are you doing?” Benedict's voice cracked.
“I've heard three accounts of what happened out there.” Edwin's words carried the weight of the guild, and everyone knew it. “From Ash, from Eryn, and Johan.” His eyes narrowed. “A level zero scavenger? With an untested group? What were you thinking?”
“I—”
“If I'd known you were taking such an unbalanced party out there, I'd have stopped you myself.” Edwin stepped forward, and Benedict stumbled back. “As party leader, it's your responsibility to lead in a way that prevents challenges to your authority. So tell me, Benedict – why would they flee into the forest if you fought for them? Look at their gear.” The commander gestured to our battered forms. “They carry the marks of combat, proving they have been fighting for their lives, and you? Your gear is as clean as if you just stepped from the inn!”
The last words echoed across the yard, drawing murmurs and nods from the onlookers. Benedict's face had lost all color.
“Empty your storage,” Edwin snapped, his voice cutting through the silence. “Now.”
“You can't—”
Edwin's sword burst into flames.
“I will not ask again.”
Benedict's hand trembled as he swiped out a single Steel Scuttler carcass.
Edwin turned to us.
“Ash, Eryn.”
We stepped forward and swiped out Scuttler corpses, one after another, until a massive pile of fourteen of the monsters covered the ground.
“Together with Knut, we fought our way back,” I said. “And since he was knocked out, we did the looting on his behalf.”
“Are these valuable to you besides keeping your weakling self alive?”
“Yes. But be quiet for now. I must focus.”
The gathered crowd erupted in furious whispers and gasps, and Benedict's eye twitched.
“Lies. You must have—”
“Enough!” Edwin's voice boomed, cutting through the murmurs like a flaming sword through silk. “As Commander of Sentinel Station and the highest-ranking adventurer of the Branchway, I hereby summon Benedict before the Adventuring Guild for charges of negligence, reckless endangerment, and cowardice while leading, resulting in the death of a scavenger under his charge.”
The crowd fell silent. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath. I blinked, trying to process what he had just said. Charges were never made lightly due to political and monetary reasons, but this time, no, not this time, but this man, this Commander, he was...different and unswayed by politics.
“Your actions endangered not just your party, but Dawnwatch and all of Noros. You will face a guild tribunal to answer for these charges.”
Benedict went pale, reaching desperately for his staff.
“No, Edwin, you can't—”
Edwin raised his sword, sending Benedict stumbling into the dirt to escape its flames.
“No more excuses. The guild will decide your fate.” He turned to three nearby guards. “Escort him through the rift and report to the guild hall. Inform Guild Leader Harold that Benedict is to face the tribunal and tell him what happened. I will check in on him later and see if you left anything out.”
As the guards moved to flank him, Benedict scrambled to his feet and spat toward me. I raised my shield, blocking his final insult.
“That's it. Strike him down! He must die for that!”
“If I strike him, they'll kill me. With Edwin against him, he's done for. But if I do anything stupid, not only do I insult the Commander, I also—oh, just shut up, Roq.”
There was one way for me to get a small measure of revenge, despite the differences in our stature, all while ensuring some fairness.
“Johan,” I said loudly, staring at Benedict. “As the ranking scavenger still alive, that Scuttler is yours. Take it as payment for the mission.”
Edwin and Alex chuckled as Benedict screamed in rage, the guards leading him away. He could have fought and likely killed the guards, but his eyes kept flickering to Edwin's burning sword, and he chose life over dignity.
As they stepped through the portal, a weight lifted from my shoulders. That man could kill me so easily with his spells, and there was nothing I could have done about it. Not yet, anyway.
“Thank you, Commander,” Eryn said, swiping five Scuttlers into her storage. “From what he showed today, he is not fit to lead.”
“Bastard's not even fit to be in a party the way he ran from those monsters,” I said as the crowd dispersed, and I swiped up the remaining nine and nodded for Johan to take the last.
With fewer eyes on us, Edwin's stern expression softened, his scarred face showing genuine remorse.
“I owe you all an apology. This happened under my watch. Benedict was part of my team until recently, and I had considered him a friend despite his many flaws. I should have seen the signs, especially after our last run.” He sheathed his sword and shifted Knut on his shoulder. “I will have to call on you all during the tribunal.”
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“He took me out there to die. A level zero!” Johan's voice cracked with anger. “He led me to believe I was going with the premier party in Dawnwatch. You can bet your ass I'll be at that trial. With rift-blessed bells on.”
Eryn touched Johan's arm, her gentle presence calming him slightly.
“We all will. The guild needs to know exactly what happened.” She sighed, adjusting her medical bag. “I'll do my duty and testify without prejudice. Just the honest truth.”
“Ask if we can kill him,” Roq's metallic voice rang in my head. “If they sanction it, his death would feed me much power. I can taste it already.”
“You're not helping, Roq. Do you really think they'd let me smash his head in with a hammer? Do you think I'd really want to?”
“I'll be there too, Commander,” I said, trying to ignore Roq's bloodthirsty suggestions. “Whatever the guild needs.”
Edwin clasped my shoulder.
“Thank you, all of you. But right now, we need to get Knut to the infirmary. His wounds won't heal themselves.”
“You go ahead,” I said. “I'm going to take a walk on the wall and center myself. I need a moment on my own.”
I shared a glance with Eryn and she nodded, smiling. She understood that I meant to have a chat with Roq away from the crowd and everything that had happened. I walked over to the wall, hopped onto a wooden one-person lift, and triggered the counterweight. Up I soared, stepping onto the walkway to gaze out over the killing fields. Guards would be by and reset the elevator on their rounds.
I settled at a quiet spot, finally alone with my thoughts. And my hammer.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For saving my life, and that of Eryn. If I'd been wielding any other weapon we’d both be dead.”
I expected Roq to jump on the comment, but instead, he felt thoughtful.
“The feeding in the end was worth the hassle,” he said after a drawn-out moment.
“Usually people reply with 'you are welcome’.”
“And you better be ready to feed me again soon, Ash. You'll need it.”
“I'll need it? What is it you want, Roq?”
I twirled him in my grip, nearly expecting him to go 'wheeeee', but it didn't seem to phase him.
“I am to become the strongest soul weapon in the worlds.”
“You mean world?”
“I'm pretty sure I meant what I said.”
“Alright. And how close are you to the next level?”
“Open your soul chart and move to my tab.”
I turned and stepped along the walkway, keeping one eye on the forest, and nodded as I passed a guard, heading towards the gates and the tablet.
“Where are we going?”
“To the soul chart?”
“Just open yours.”
I thought back to how the soul chart had popped up by itself when I'd first come through the rift. I touched my tattoo, swiping my fingers along it in different moves, but all I achieved was re-arranging the Scuttler corpses.
“Not like that, you half-brained biped! Like... this!”
Suddenly, I knew how to do it. As if I'd remembered a forgotten memory. I moved a finger in a half-circle across my wrist, before tapping it twice, then stopped and pretended to stare towards the forest again as the soul chart opened in front of my eyes.
NAME: Ash Aldrich
LEVEL: 3 (2/4)
STRENGTH: 18
AGILITY: 11
VITALITY: 13 (+1)
MIND: 11
TOTAL STATS: 53 (+1)
“How'd you do that? Can you just put any knowledge into my mind?”
“I'm not sure. Blazingly obvious knowledge, like any baby would know, sure. But the mysteries of the universe? I don't think so.”
“You know the mysteries of the universe? I thought you couldn't remember anything from before your forging?”
I smiled and nodded at another guard, having shrunk the chart so I could see past it.
“And you will never know.”
He's bluffing. I'm ninety percent sure of it.
“How do I find your chart, and where did I get another vitality from?”
“Being beaten up and healed repeatedly has to have SOME advantage, doesn’t it? Also, like this.”
Again, the knowledge appeared in my mind, and I swiped my fingers across the spatial tattoo, seeing a completely new chart.
“Class-blessed pioneer!” I said, staring at the text.
NAME: Vannash' Khazeesh (Roq)
WEAPON CLASS: Hammer
LEVEL: 3
EXPERIENCE: [||||||||--] 80%
WEAPON TYPE: Bludgeoning
ATTACK SPEED: High
RANGE: Short
SPECIAL
NAME: Power of the Hammer
TYPE: Passive
DESCRIPTION: +30% Strength
NAME: Impact Amplification
TYPE: Passive
DESCRIPTION: Every attack delivered using this weapon will deal far greater damage than it would ordinarily do.
NAME: Armour Disruption
TYPE: Passive
DESCRIPTION: Armour seems to soften or become brittle under the weapon's repeated strikes.
ABILITIES:
NAME: Blood Forge
TYPE: Active / Self-Heal
DESCRIPTION: Transform stored monster carcasses into energy that amplifies the wielder's natural regeneration.
“Can you see this?”
“I KNOW this.”
“It's amazing! You are nearly level four already. And it's not from my mind gems?”
“No. Consuming the lifeblood of the vanquished grants me power!”
“Care to be a little more specific?”
Roq seemed to sigh.
“Do you insist?”
“Please. It is in my interest to help you grow as fast as possible. How can I do that if you don't tell me how it all works?”
“Good point. For me to gain power, I must first be covered in a living being's blood, and then it must die.”
So that's why he keeps screaming for blood and being fed all the time.
“Do we have to be the one to kill it? Does it only work on monsters, or will it work on animals?”
“What exactly are you implying?”
“Could I level you up by signing up with a butcher and kill a few hundred cows, pigs, and so on?”
“Absolutely not! I refuse to drink blood of the unworthy!”
“Unworthy? Animals are noble and—”
“Don't even think about it. I will fall on your head in your sleep if you try feeding me animal blood. Besides, only the blood of those close enough to my level of power is worthy. Other blood won't work. Which brings us back to Benedict.”
“I will not murder to grant you more power. Out of the question.” This was important for Roq to understand, so I put as much mental certainty behind the statement as I could, and it seemed to work.
“Fine. But keep in mind if someone is going to die near you, dipping me in their blood would stop their death from being a waste. And if it so happened that a powerful adventurer attacked us and his face met the back of his skull... you'd be surprised how swiftly we'd grow in power.”
“Then we are in agreement. No animal blood, and no murder.”
The dying? That remained to be seen.
“Agreed.”
I tried not to let relief fill me too much. A blood-absorbing weapon was a lot to take in, especially when it could speak directly into my mind. Thank the rift for my spatial storage. I had the ultimate power in the relationship, being able to put him away if needed, but it wasn't something I should highlight. I'd never liked when adventurers lorded their power over me, and from my interactions with Roq so far, I didn't think he'd take kindly to being lorded over either. No. This was an equal partnership, or rather, I figured that's the only way it would work.
“By the way, why didn't you speak to me until we crossed through the rift if we forged our bond back at the smithy. Are you unable to talk to me in Noros?”
“How long did it take you to speak after being born, biped? And that's without having a torture chamber as a crib!”
“Okay! I get it. I'm sorry. I didn't know, alright?”
“Yeah. You better be sorry.”
I rolled my eyes, leaning on the palisade.
“You haven't told me what you want.”
“You didn't ask. Quite rude, really.”
“Fine. What is your goal, oh Ash the mighty?”
I stared out at the darkening forest, my grip tightening on Roq's shaft.
“I want to reach level sixty and become the strongest fighter Noros has ever seen.”
“A worthy goal. Why?”
“To protect those I love. Ma and Pa took me in when my family could no longer afford to keep me. There were too many mouths to feed. But Ma and Pa gave me everything. A home, love, and a future. I've seen what happens to those who can't defend themselves in this place. The monsters don't care if you're kind or good or innocent.”
“Humans really are weak, aren't they? So dependent on one another.”
“While the awesome Roq is so independent?”
“I need no one.”
“How exactly would you feed without my arm to swing you?”
Roq elected to ignore my question.
“How exactly do humans grow in strength? Why leave the blood to drain into the Earth then?”
“Humans don't level by drinking blood. That's... barbaric.”
“I'll have you know it is delicious.”
“Whatever. The point is that we need gems to level up. Mind gems are what we need for the levels themselves, with the level number corresponding to the amount of gems needed to reach that level from the previous. I am level three, and to become level four I need to consume four mind gems.”
“How do you consume them?”
“I eat them?”
“Hah! I knew it. We are more alike than you want to admit. Except I drink their blood and you eat their souls.” Roq's laugh made me shift uncomfortably, not quite enjoying where this was leading. “Now who is the true barbarian?”
“The point is, the gems are found inside monsters, and to reach the highest level I need a lot of them.”
“One thousand, eight hundred and twenty-two by my count.”
My eyebrows rose.
“That is indeed correct.”
“With nine from the corpses in your inventory, you should reach level five today then. Hmm, that is so unfair. You will level up way faster than me.”
“No, I won't, Roq. We only find mind gems in about one in ten to one in thirty monsters. Not every monster drops a gem, you know? Maybe we will get one or two if we're lucky from the nine we have in my storage, but...then again, I have to pay Knut for his services.”
“That hardly seems fair.”
“We did promise him, and he did save our lives.”
“First off, you could have outrun those Scuttlers. Second, I'm glad you didn't, because then I'd be starving. Third... I forgot the third. One thought of delicious blood and it slipped my mind. What were we talking about?”
“Mind gems?”
“Oh, yes. It hardly seems fair you can kill twenty-nine monsters and receive nothing for it.”
“Not nothing. Nearly every part of the carcasses will be used, so I can always sell them for gold and simply buy mind gems, though the worth of corpses varies. But we also need class gems. They are ten times as rare as mind gems and I'll need one to unlock my class at level ten. Then I will need additional class gems to break through every tenth level. It's a slog.”
“With your limited space, why don't you only pick the corpses with gems inside and leave behind those without?”
I laughed.
“People have tried that before. No one has ever found a way to determine which monster has gems in them in the field.”
“Can’t you just look inside? We cracked them open good?.”
I smacked my head.
“Sorry. I keep forgetting you are a soul weapon. Gems don't show up before they are transported through a rift. And in doing so, they are also restored to their original state, so any damage done is removed, leaving a pristine, but dead, monster.”
“So, no butchering riftside?”
“Never heard of anyone who's found a soul gem riftside, ever. Not since the opening of the first rift.”
“What if you just cut off pieces from their corpses and bring them through? Would they regenerate fully, with a chance to spawn a gem?”
“For once, I like how you are thinking, but no. It's been tried. When I swipe a carcass into my spatial storage, all of the pieces come along, even if there are a dozen. I'm not sure how it works exactly, but it does. To carry carcasses back outside your storage would be extremely time-consuming, finding every little piece? Not worth it.”
“What if monsters walk through the rift themselves? Gems?”
“We do NOT want that.”
“Why?”
Before I could answer, I heard Eryn calling my name and turned to find her waving me over.
“Be right there!” I said and headed for a rope.
“It'll have to wait. For now, just know we cannot let any live monsters through the rift. What we want is to grow stronger, and we can do so together.”
“So our job is to crack open monsters and take what's inside them?” Roq's mental voice held an eager edge.
“Exactly. The bigger and stronger the monster, the better the chance of finding gems.”
“I believe this is the beginning of a beautiful alliance. You give me blood, and I’ll let you smash things with me.”
I smiled and slid down to the ground before hurrying over to Eryn.
“Deal. Don’t forget you just promised.”
“Knut's awake,” Eryn said. “He's asking for us.”
“Thank the rift,” I said and grabbed her hand as we headed for the infirmary.